


The Mountains And The Stars Above Them

by Ship_theboybands



Category: Pentatonix
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Pining, angst kinda, basically BOYS WHO DO NOT COMUNICATE, kevin being awesome, tw: panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4923577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ship_theboybands/pseuds/Ship_theboybands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Avi Kaplan meets Mitch Grassi the whole world stops spinning, probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mountains And The Stars Above Them

**Author's Note:**

> this story is set starting at the sing off and ending somewhere near the present day. it a a (sort of) canon compliant re telling of ptx's career but obviously not actually canon.
> 
> tw: panic attack, not told from pov of person experiencing it
> 
> DISCLAIMER: the following work of fiction is not true. that's why it's called fan FICTION.
> 
> (also shout out to wyat-blue-grasii-hoying for betaing the first part ur a real pal <3)

The day Avi Kapalan meets Mitch Grassi the whole world stops spinning, probably.

It's a Friday, at 9:35 am, and Avi walks into a room where he meets four strangers.

“And this is Mitch,” says Scott, light and airy, inappropriate when he surely means _and this is your death sentence and first breath of air_ , and Avi is both doomed and born right there on the spot.

And Mitch smiles like all the stars are there in his mouth, so young and glowing and radiant and pretty. It’s a bit like someone’s just turned on a light switch.  
Some mad scientist in the sky has named one magnet _Mitch_ and one magnet _Avi_ and put them in close enough proximity that they drift closer together with growing momentum, and then, for the next four years, each time it looks like they’re going to crash into one another, he pulls them back to where they started.

This is all a little dramatic.

At the time, of course, Avi does not acknowledge their meeting like this. It’s actually kind of awkward. Mitch is an insecure teenager and Avi is falling into adulthood while trying desperately to both cling to childhood and propel himself further than he already is.

Scott, who Avi had already met, says “This is Kirstie,” first. Kirstie is short and smiley and very, very cute. She kind of looks like every girl Avi had a crush on in high school, and when she does a little half wave and side smile he feels the beginnings of a crush on _her_.

“I’m Kevin,” Says Kevin, giving him a nervous smile (which Avi imagines mirrors his own) and reaching forward a hand for Avi to shake. Neither of them know that from the moment their palms meet like this they won't ever really let go again.

“And this is Mitch,” Says Scott, and Avi doesn’t think much of the way the kid smiles other than that it’s a nice smile and the kid looks shy, so Avi’s big hand shakes Mitch’s little one and that is the start of it.

 

They work their asses off on a reality tv show, which once they win will not actually fulfil their dreams on the spot.

Avi wears dorky outfits, dances awkwardly, and memorises arrangements so well he could sing them in his sleep. He steps on big, big stages and opens his mouth. People want to hear what comes out, and they tell him so, they clap and cheer and he sings low, low, low.

He bonds with these four strangers, because it would be impossible not to, and because they are all inexplicably connected by the way their voices melt together like s'mores (at first he thinks he and Kevin are the wafers and that the other three are the marshmallows and chocolate, but realises, years down the line, it was he and Mitch being pushed together into something weird and sweet).

He and Scott butt heads like brothers, Kevin quickly becomes one of the best friends he’s ever had, and he puts Kirstie up on a ‘dream girl’ pedestal, getting dumb butterflies when she laughs so hard she has to lean on him for support.

Mitch comes out of his shell slowly and it’s delightful. He’s hilarious and goofy and passionate and scared all at once. Avi feels privileged to know him.  
One night they’re walking from the venue to the hotel they’re staying in while they’re on the show, after dress rehearsals, and the moonlight makes everything silver. Avi is trailing at the back of the group, and is surprised when Mitch falls back in line to walk with him. Mitch is quiet.

“You okay?” Avi asks, after Mitch makes an aborted move, like he was about to say something, but changed his mind.

“I, uh- I’m really freaked out, actually. Like really scared,” Mitch admits, staring at his shoes, voice small and shaky. Avi feels like Mitch has given him something very important which he must protect, and he feels the responsibility of this moment in every bone of his body.

He thinks carefully before he speaks next.

“That’s okay,” He says, and Mitch looks up from the ground, “I mean, I am too. We all are. You’re only seventeen and we’re doing this thing we all want to change our lives, that’s a crazy amount of pressure. But you don’t need to worry, because you’re, like, the most talented person I’ve ever met,” He realises how true it is once he’s said it. Considering Mitch’s age, his voice is unreal.

Mitch is smiling at him now, and he looks down at his shoes again when he says, “Thanks.”

“Besides, everyone’s so hypnotised by my amazing bass notes they won’t even notice if you mess up,” He adds, and it startles a surprised laugh out of Mitch.

“A joke! He jokes!” Mitch exclaims, Avi shoves him lightly, and Mitch lets out an exaggerated squeal.

“Only reason I’m so serious is because I care about this so much,” Avi admits once he’s done laughing at Mitch.

“Only reason I’m so scared is because I care about it so much,” Mitch shrugs.

On paper Avi and Mitch are totally different people; Avi is solem where Mitch is silly, Avi is thoughtful when Mitch is loud, Avi is big where Mitch is small, Avi sings lower and lower, Mitch sings higher and higher.

They are also, in some places, and at this moment in particular, remarkably the same.

 

They continue to work hard, and it continues to pay off, and things all continue to go great until they bounce off stage after the Britney spears medley and Mitch has his first panic attack.

It sucks. Avi is so bouncy, and happy, and excited, and proud one moment and the next his heart is falling into his shoes as Mitch collapses like the mad scientist has abruptly cut his wires.

Everyone freaks out and doesn’t know what to do and Mitch struggles for air like a fish out of water. Everyone, almost in synchronicity, seems to take a step forward, then think ‘oh no, everyone’s crowding around him!’ and take a step back again, until Scott just wraps him up in his arms and holds onto him, which Avi is pretty sure you’re not supposed to do when someone is having a panic attack, but hell if he knows what you are supposed to do.

And so they all wait until something about the familiarity of it anchors Mitch enough that he can start to breathe again.

A medic comes and sees to him, and Mitch is okay, but it leaves Avi feeling bitter and useless for not having been able to do anything about it. There’s something else, too, some fierce and burning feeling just beneath the surface of his awareness that he doesn’t pin down. That he won’t, not for a while.

His feelings for Kirstie grow as the show draws to an end. None of them can believe that they got this far, and something about the dramatic energy has him feeling like everything is much more important than it is. They have to win, because if they don’t, he wont ever see his new best friends again, and he won’t achieve his dreams, and he won’t ever get to ask Kirstie out.

 

It’s Avi who suggests Mitch’s solo in Dog Days. The Trio are all trying to work out the most powerful harmony for the part when Avi pipes up.  
“Why doesn’t Mitch just do it?” He asks, and they all turn to look at him. “I mean, his voice is perfect for it, and we haven’t really shown it off enough. It’ll surprise people,” He elaborates, and Mitch somehow looks both nervous and touched.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Kirstie enthuses, “Come on Mitch, we gotta show you off!”

Mitch looks at Kirstie, and then the ceiling fan, and then his shoes, and then Scott.

“Shouldn’t Scott just do it?” Mitch asks, looking a little pale at the prospect. Scott’s forehead creases up like he’s considering something and then he says:

“Mitch come talk to me outside for a second,” his voice strong and sure, the voice he does that makes all six of them feel like it’s okay. Scott’s going to take the lead here and they’ll all be fine.

Mitch nods and follows Scott outside where they talk for ten minutes. When they return Mitch’s eyes are red rimmed but he’s doing this funny smug little smile and Avi wonders, not for the first time, if they had just kissed.

It’s hard not to think it when you first meet them. They’re just so comfortable around each other, have this weird and perfect chemistry that Avi’s never even seen before, and somehow Mitch always seems to be able to calm Scott down, and Scott able knock Mitch’s confidence up.  
“I’m gonna try it,” Mitch says, and so they run through the song from the top.

 

It is on stage, in a stupid too bright blue shirt and a too tight black sleeveless jacket, facing the back of the stage and listening to an entire arena fall silent as Mitch sings so perfectly, so clean and soft and pretty, that the beginnings of a something start to build slowly in Avi’s chest. Some spider starts spinning this velvety soft web from his stomach to his ribcage to the tips of his fingers, this light and happy feeling weaving through his guts and bones and up to the surface of his skin, and he thinks of every time Mitch has given the impression that thought he wasn’t good enough, and of all the ways he is phenomenal, and the feeling moves up to his throat and threatens to choke him.

But then the solo is over, and they’re all chiming in again in this perfect harmony, and all Avi can do is join them.

They win The Sing Off. It feels, at the time, like _everything_.

The moment their name is called they all five fall into each other, arms wrapping and twisting and fitting together.

Kirstie is crying, and Avi thinks how she deserves this so much. She’s such a star, they are all such fucking stars. White confetti falls all around them, and Scott seems to collapse, so tired from dragging them tooth and nail to victory. Some insane force inside of him had said “You are going to win,” and so they had.  
Kevin is hooting, and Avi loves him so dearly, laughs. The runners up, the Dartmouth Aire, are all crowding around them, too, snatching them up into hugs. He swears he picks out his family's voices in the crowd cheering, Esther screaming out like he’s made her proud.

When they’re called to come get their trophy Avi gets there first but moves swiftly out of the way so Scott can accept it. He clings to Kevin ridiculously and they spin each other around like brothers. Scott stumbles over his words and Avi sees that Mitch is crying, hard. His face is red and blotchy and overjoyed, this disbelief painted over his features. He

watches his face in slow motion, he wipes at his eyes and then his mouth forms around this limitless unabashed grin, eyes shining as tears roll down his face.  
Avi thinks this is the best he’s ever looked.

 

After soaring victory, of course, comes crushing defeat. The world gives you _good_ most of the time so when _phenomenal_ happens it has to balance itself out again by dragging you back down with _catastrophe_.

They take the money they won and move to L.A, young and buzzing and close knit, the only worry being the tremor in Mitch’s hand as they hand over their boarding passes. They have meetings with company executives and record label officials, they spend late nights talking about all their plans, albums and tours and awards and success. Scott is glowing from the inside out, and his hands are still bleeding from this clawing battle to victory he’s been doing since probably birth, but he’s mellowing out, just a little. Avi is so deliriously happy.

So, of course, when they go into a meeting with the CEO of _Epic Records_ , the news comes as a shock.

They file in in the order: Scott, Mitch, Kirstie, Avi, Kevin. They sit on comfy chairs in front of a wide glossy table with a smart no nonsense looking man opposite them, along with a few other people in suits. It’s a high office, and there are platinum records framed on the walls along with signed guitars and big posters of musicians and concerts. Avi imagines a big print of Pentatonix selling out MSG right above their record.

They had thought the meeting would be about which direction they’d be going in, mapping out business plans and album concepts, but instead the guy sits down across from them with a constipated look on his face. He spends a lot of time dancing around the point but basically says that he just doesn’t think there’s a place for Acapella in mainstream music, and that Pentatonix would not be an asset to their company.

They sit, for a moment, in silent and stunned disbelief. Avi thinks if you watched it back you could see the moment each of them realise exactly what he’s saying, and pause on the expression of devastation. They realise in this order: Kevin, Avi, Kirstie, Mitch… Scott.  
The first person to make a noise is Scott, who laughs. A sharp, dry, bark with no humour to it. The sound fills the entire office. Everyone turns to him, like they always do, but the look on his face makes Avi close his eyes.

“You’re kidding, right?” He says, sharp and biting, venomous and determined like Avi’s never heard him before. No one answers, and Scott stands, slamming his rough and raw and Avi’s sure he’s not imagining _bloody_ fists hard on the table so a few of the suits flinch backwards. “Tell. Me. You’re. Fucking. Kidding,” He demands, slow and simple and _furious_.

They’re not kidding.

Pentatonix are gently and quietly swept under a mat, and Avi doesn’t think he’s ever been so heart broken.

 

The moments they spend sitting, facing each other, in the room while they wait for their cab home from the record building is an even bigger game changer than winning had been, in the grand scheme of things.

They are sat facing each other in these weird bright orange art deco kind of chairs the company had clearly bought to make them seem avant garde and intuitive. Kirstie and Kevin are both crying, Kirstie into Kevin’s shoulder and Kevin into his hands. Mitch still looks numb and shocked, shaking slightly, the way he looks right before he has a panic attack, and Avi is just clinging onto Mitch’s hand, all of his attention focused on his fingers intertwined with Mitch’s and squeezing tight, not thinking about the way he wants to break into a million pieces.

They had been so fucking close it was _cruel_. They had been so, so sure, had worked their _asses_ off and it just wasn’t _fair_. They hadn’t even been given a chance, just dropped like dead weight. Scott, after a moment of sitting with his eyes clamped shut and fists pressed into his skull, stands up.  
They all turn to him, and he says, “Fuck it,” like it’s as easy as that.

He sounds slightly hysterical and unhinged, and has this look on his face which scares Avi a little bit.“Fuck it, we’ll do it all anyway. We’ll do it without them,” He continues, his eyes wide and crazed, “We don’t need them because we are talented and we are hardworking and we _deserve it_.” He almost shouts the last two words, and as Avi looks at his face, and then the faces of each of the others, there is this decisive unspoken resolve that what Scott has just said is crucial.

And that fuck it, they _will_ do it all, anyway.

And so they do. They shift back into the mind set they had adopted on the sing off of live or die determination to succeed. They sing everywhere they can, and post their first video to YouTube, and do not shut up.

Avi’s schoolboy crush on Kirstie comes to a head when she starts dating some guy who lives in the apartment across from her and all he really feels is happy for her. She’s all giggles and side smiles and Avi just wants her to be that way all the time.

“So, you’re not upset about it?” Kevin, who Avi had never told about his crush but who had known anyway, asks him later when they’re watching t.v in their pyjamas.

“I guess?” Avi shrugs, “I don’t think I ever really… it’s like I was more attracted to this idea I had of her in my head. Like just smiley all the time, never angry or bitter or anything, just like this perfect girl. But I think after being through so much together, I know who she actually is and it’s like, I love her, but she’s not, obviously, this ideal version of her that I had in my head. She’s actually more like my annoying little sister and my colleague and my team mate and sometimes my boss, you know?”

“Yeah, I totally get that. Kinda similar to Mitch,” Kevin says idly, and Avi frowns at him.

“You had a crush on Mitch?” He asks.

“Dude, I’d tell you if I was into dudes,” Kevin shakes his head, “more like, when I first met him, I was like ‘this is the most confident and hilarious kid ever, oh and he’s so talented ,oh man!’, right? Whereas now, it’s like I know how damn hard he works and his whole anxiety thing and how strong he is to power through and he’s just so much more complex than just this caricature idea of him I had when I first knew him.”

Avi turns this over in his head a few times. He thinks about all the vulnerable layers he’s seen of Mitch, and all the happy ones too. How he’s seen him terrified and elated, talked with him about business and music and family and Spongebob.

“You’re so smart,” Avi tells Kevin and Kevin nods.

“Yeah, I am. D’you wanna order some kind of meat based dish?”

“Absolutely.”

 

That night Avi can’t sleep. He lays with his eyes closed for a long time and thinks about everything up to this point. Things are okay, at the moment. He’s frustrated, still, but hopeful, and all five of them are keeping each other from slacking. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so close to a group of people. It feels like it’s them against the world.  
But he misses his sister, and LA is scary, and there’s something else he’s trying not to acknowledge, just a small crisis he doesn’t have the time for at the moment.  
He sleeps restlessly and keeps thinking.

 

Their YouTube channel does well. And then it does better, and then their videos are going _viral_. They start getting professional videos and playing small town shows, and they all feel the momentum beginning to pick up again.

He has the idea of getting his sister to manage them, and she slips back into his life so perfectly. It feels like flopping face first onto his own bed after being away on a long trip when he picks her up from the airport and she jumps into his arms.

 

It’s the night before they set off on their first proper tour that Avi realises, truly, what’s been choking him in the middle of the night.

Scott and Mitch invite everyone over to theirs for a farewell barbeque. Avi’s getting used to the fact that ‘everyone’ doesn’t just mean the five of them anymore. Now it means the five of them and Esther and Kirstie’s boyfriend and Mitch’s boyfriend.

Because Mitch has a boyfriend now.

It’s not that Avi doesn’t like the guy, he just… he _just_.

Mitch seems really, really happy. Not just loved up happy, either, like confident and less anxious and generally life happy. He puts himself forward for solos and doesn’t shake before they go on stage. Avi is so pleased about all of this, there’s just this weird something turning in his stomach, that same feeling Avi remembers having back on the sing off when Mitch had had his panic attack and he’d not been able to help, even when Mitch was fine again.

Avi and Kevin arrive a little early because Avi’s the one who’s going to be actually manning the grill. They all live close by and feel at home in each other’s houses, so Avi has no problem working away, taking ingredients and spices out of where he knows they’re kept. Scott and Kevin start setting up chairs and tables outside, and it’s nice to all just be productive together, in tune enough with each other than they don’t have to speak about it. Avi realises, belatedly, that Mitch hasn’t shown up yet.

“Where’s Mitch?” he asks.

“Uh, him and Travis were talking something out,” Scott shrugs, barely hiding his concern. Avi works away a little more forcefully.

Soon everyone else arrives, and Mitch and Travis appear looking totally fine, sneaking little smiles at each other and stealing each other’s food. It’s good, Avi tells himself.  
It’s a really nice meal. They’re all wine smiles and reminiscing and it’s a perfect summer evening, warm breeze and purple sky. Avi feels as though he’s watching it like a spectator, like something is off with him in particular.

Avi isn’t allowed to help clean up because he cooked, so he plonks himself down on the deck with a beer and cranes his neck back to look at the sky. He can’t see the stars properly, city pollution making it all hazy, and he misses going to the mountains with his family. But then Mitch ungracefully sits himself down next to him, warm and tipsy and giggly, and Avi doesn’t, anymore.

“You are a star,” Avi tells him, because he’s a little tipsy himself, and Mitch laughs, leaning against him.

“Thanks, dork,” He says, “You’re pretty cool, too.”

“You nervous about tour?” Avi asks, and he feels Mitch shake his head against his shoulder.

“No, it’s gonna be great. I’m honestly just excited,” He enthuses, voice sounding sharp, electric. Avi remembers the timid way he’d admitted his fears to him in the early days and, probably due to alcohol consumption, feels himself choke up a little.

“Me too,” He says, instead of something goofy and sentimental, and they sit together quietly for a little while.

“What’s wrong?” Mitch asks, because he knows him, because they know each other like they know how to sing Telephone and like they know how to power through to success and like Avi knows that he is the mountains and Mitch is the sky full of stars above him.

“I don’t really know,” Avi says honestly, and takes a sip of beer. “Everything okay with you and Travis? Scott said you were talking or something.”

Mitch laughs a little bit, “Yeah, we’re fine, it was something really stupid.”

“What was it?” Avi asks, turning so he can see his face, just as Mitch turns further into his shoulder to hide it.

“You’ll laugh when I tell you,” Mitch insists.

“Mitch!” Avi insists, and Mitch sits up properly, shaking his head.

“He was worried that me and Scott had feelings for each other and we were going to act on them, on tour,” He admits, and Avi does laugh.

“Don’t laugh!” Mitch hits him on the arm, but he’s cracking up a little too.

“I’m sorry, I just, you and Scott are so… I don’t know you’re just _Mitch and Scott_. It’s just the way you are,” Avi says, “How could he think that?”

“Well, not everyone knows us like the five of us know each other,” Mitch shrugs, a small, fond looking smile on his lips.

And Avi realises just how true that is, realises that _that’s_ a part of what’s got him all scattered. At the beginning, he’d kind of thought something might have been going on, but now that he knows Mitch and Scott’s dynamic so inside out it just seems ridiculous. But, he supposes, to someone who doesn’t, it would absolutely seem like that. And then he starts thinking about all the other perceptions people could have about Mitch, perceptions _Travis_ could have about Mitch, because they don’t understand him on the same deep level Avi does. And Mitch deserves someone who understands him, someone who cares about him deeply enough to really, really _know_ him.

And then something clicks and starts whirring inside his brain chest and stomach all at once and he looks at Mitch with what he imagines is an expression somewhere between bone crushing realisation and abject horror.

“Avi?” Mitch asks, frowning, and Avi feels like if he tries to speak his tongue will fall out of his mouth or he’ll be sick or the next words he says will be an admission he is not even remotely ready to make, so he pastes on a paper smile and shakes his head and looks back up at the starless sky with his heart in his shoes, and does not say anything at all.

 

Tour is, objectively, amazing. They travel around in a cool bus and play for pretty big venues of people who really like them. Hundreds of people each night cheer for him and want to hear him sing. It is his dream come true.

There is the fact that Avi is having a slight personal identity crisis, however.

Avi wishes he could be cool about this. He wishes he was the kind of laid back guy that could just go ‘oh, so I like guys, that’s okay!’, but he’s just not.  
He sits in the dressing room and stares at himself in the mirror for about ten minutes before the Chicago show. It’s pretty cliché, but he can’t stop thinking he must look different, like this realisation is plastered on his forehead. He’s never had any problem with gay people, but suddenly this idea that he could be an entirely different person than he thought is settling weirdly against his skin like damp clothes.

He still likes girls, he’s sure of that. But he’s also sure he’s attracted to Mitch, and if he’s being honest, has been attracted to other guys in the past. The more he thinks about it, the more he realises that relationships with guys he’d written off as being hero worship and friendship had actually been crushes.  
He rubs his hands at his growing facial hair. He’s trying to grow a beard, which Mitch had lewdly declared would look sexy. He tries not to think on that too hard and goes to pour the dregs of his coffee into the little white sink in the corner of the room. He watches the brown splash against the white like paint on a canvas and knows that tonight isn’t going to be his best show.

He finds the others backstage, all buzzing with the same excitement, chattering and teasing and poking. Mitch grins when he sees him, and for a second it’s just the best thing Avi could have seen, the most promising and calming anchor. Then, of course, Mitch opens his mouth.  
“Hey big Daddy!” He jokes, and the other three just fucking _howl_ with laughter. Because it’s a joke, him and Mitch. The idea of them is just a _joke_. He knows, thinking about it logically, that the reason it’s a joke is because everyone thinks Avi is straight, but he can’t help feeling like it’s because Mitch is too good. Mitch is too gorgeous and bright and sure of himself, like the stars, and Avi is the jagged and always changing mountains. He is what happens when two tectonic plates slide into each other, and maybe the pressure is just going to build and build until he’s a volcano. Until he erupts and just ruins everything.

But Avi laughs, wooden and hollow, because it’s a joke.

 

It’s not his best show, and because he’s in an acapella group where every voice is woven carefully like tapestry, his thread being loose means the whole thing kind of falls apart. Everyone notices that Avi is off. Scott, who had blood still under his finger nails and who’d ripped his throat out singing so hard to cover Avi’s mistakes, is a little pissed.  
“Avi, what the hell?” He asks as soon as they get back in the dressing room, and the silence that follows is heavy. He looks at all their faces and knows he let them down, distantly feels bad about it, but it’s just so _unfair_.

It is so unfair that they all know who they are. They know what they want, don’t have this heavy feeling in their chests or hands round their necks, and maybe he’s being dramatic but it feels dramatic. It feels like he’s spent all this time, his whole life probably, denying this little part of himself and now it’s bubbled to the surface. It’s all Mitch’s fault, and it’s not fair that Avi can’t even be mad at him. They’re all waiting for an answer he can’t give, an answer he just does not know himself.  
He wishes, in that moment, that he could tell them he was gay. They would probably all hug him and smile and say ‘congratulations!’ and ‘I’m here for you’ and Mitch might smile at him in that secret way he does to boys who know what they want from him.

But he’s not gay. He’s just… he’s something else. He hasn’t figured it out. He’s heard of people being bi, but never actually met one, and most conversations he’d had about it had been with people who didn’t believe it was actually a thing. His best friend in high school had told him that bi guys were just gay guys not ready to come out, and bi girls were just straight girls looking for attention. He’d just accepted it seeing as that was the way most people seemed to think.

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again, and then looks at his shoes.

“I’m sorry,” He says, voice quiet and pathetic even to his own ears, “I, um, I have a lot… going on,” he scratches the back of his neck and bites his lip and _does not look at Mitch_.  
Scott sighs.

“What?” He asks, not looking so much angry as confused. And that just… it rubs him the wrong way. It’s like Scott’s saying ‘what could possibly be wrong right now when we’re finally achieving our dreams?’ and Avi wants to shout back ‘I know! That’s why this sucks! Because I should be totally happy!”

But before Avi can say anything at all Kirstie is frowning at Scott, “He doesn’t have to tell us. He had an off night, okay? We all have off nights,” she says sounding disappointed, and Avi knows if he was on the receiving end of that he’d be feeling like shit right now.

Scott looks like he’s about to protest for a moment but it passes, “You’re right,” He tells Kirstie, and apologises to Avi. Esther shoots him a concerned look like ‘we’ll talk later’ and Avi both dreads and looks forward to it. Geez, what’s Esther going to make of this whole thing? His parents? What even is _it?_.

There’s still this weird tension though, and no one really relaxes again until they go off in doubles to their hotel rooms that night.

“You want to talk about it?” Kevin asks, later that evening, not imposing but not reluctant either, just sitting on his bed in his superman pyjamas, like he’s going to come to Avi’s rescue.

Avi really thinks about telling him, could probably even do so without anyone else ever knowing if he wanted to. Kevin keeps secrets like an empty room does.

He shakes his head though, thanks him, and hopes Kevin knows he means it.

And when Kevin’s asleep he opens his laptop with shaking fingers and tries to dissect the things he knows about himself.

 

Esther should be the first to know. He should tell Esther, or he should tell Kevin, or he should call his Mom. Really, he could do with telling himself. He should stand in front of the mirror and say the word, and the ‘I am’ before it until it doesn’t sound weird in his mouth after years of him thinking it meant something different, thinking it meant ‘scared’ or ‘phase’ or ‘slut’. But Mitch finds him first, is the thing.

The tour, which had been weird and fantastic, is reaching its last dates, and they’ve been stopped in the middle of nowhere for about half an hour in the early hours of the morning due to some broken part of the bus’s engine they need a mechanic to come bring. It’s freezing, but something had compelled Avi to leave the bus. Some childish feeling of excitement at being up and out in the middle of the night in some place he’s never been before and will never be again because something went wrong. It reminds him of the time he and Esther got to stay up way past their bed times because the car broke down on the motorway, and they’d made up stories about all the people in the cars whizzing past them.

So Avi is sat, stupidly bare foot, in pyjama pants and a hoodie, when Mitch finds him.

“You’re gonna get hypothermia,” He drawls tiredly, swaddled up in his blanket and wearing slipper boots. He looks really ridiculous, and Avi _loves_ him, all of which must factor in the conversation that happens next.

“Nah, you forget I’m used to mountain weather,” Avi reminds him, and Mitch rolls his eyes but doesn’t mean it. Avi can tell when he means it.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you’re an actual Neanderthal,” He jibes but it comes across far too fond to be mean.

“That’s me,” Avi nods, and Mitch drops down next to him. If Avi was thinking with an awake brain he would notice how they’re paralleling that night before tour, the conversation and the realisation, but it’s going on 2am and they’d been driving all day, so instead he just thinks that it’s nice to be with Mitch alone.

They sit quiet together for a little while, which is rare and nice.  
“Imagine if the bus never got fixed, and we had to start a new life here,” Avi muses, because it’s the sort of thing that feels normal to say as headlights shoot past them like lasers, and Mitch’s weight leans gradually more onto Avi’s side.

Mitch laughs, no sarcasm or politeness to it, just snorts, small and surprised.

“I’d want to move into that farming town we just passed,” He says decisively.

“You think you’d be good running a farm?” Avi questions.

“I’d run the business end of things, me and Esther” Mitch clarifies, “You, Scott and Kirstie could do the manual labour.”

 

“What about Kevin?” Avi asks.

“He’s the vet!” Mitch grins, like he wanted Avi to ask.

“Very fitting,” Avi indulges him, like he always has done and always will. “We could all have dinner together at the farmhouse every night,” Avi suggests, and can picture it in his head. Wiping the mud off his face and taking off his work boots, all of them helping to prepare some big meal, all their own meat and potatoes and milk. Sitting together at a long oak table, cut off from the rest of the world.

“That’d be nice,” Mitch smiles a little distantly, like he’s picturing it too. Avi wonders if Travis is there, in Mitch’s fantasy. He wonders if Mitch has seated the two of them together.

There’s another silence, and Avi sighs a little. He thinks ‘maybe I should tell him’ and feels adrenaline rush through his body, just from the idea of saying it out loud to someone. He feels sick and excited and scared, and because it’s 2am it just bubbles right out of him.

“So I think I’m bi,” Avi says, feeling his throat close up around the words as he says them, looking out at the traffic instead of Mitch’s face. The words leave his lips like the weight of the entire fucking world has just left his shoulders, and he’s just so _sure_ of them, suddenly. It sounds like exactly what he is.  
Mitch turns to face him looking extremely startled.

“I, really?” He asks after a moment of being totally flabbergasted.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure, actually. Really sure, I’m bisexual,” He nods, feeling more confident. He even smiles a little bit, and feels tears which aren’t unhappy spring to his eyes.

“I, oh my god,” Mitch shakes himself out of his shock and throws his arms around Avi, losing his blanket and nearly nocking Avi over in the process. Avi laughs, and it feels really, really good.

“You- this is great! I’m so happy for you, I just, I never would have guessed,” Mitch is babbling, and Avi laughs again.  
He feels so incredibly light, like he could just float away.

So Avi tells more people, and each time he is just as terrified before and just as overjoyed afterwards.

He tells Esther the next morning over breakfast, and Kevin in their hotel room a couple of days later, and then Scott and Kirstie, until almost all of his close friends know.  
His parents are harder to tell, but he phones them with shaking fingers and a shakier voice and has to explain the whole thing because they don’t really get it, but once they’re all done crying and Avi knows for sure they love him anyway, they talk about their next trip to the mountains and a warm and cosy fire burns in Avi’s heart, so relieved and content he almost hurts with it.

And then he stands in front of the bathroom mirror for a long time just saying it to himself like a dork. A big, happy, bisexual dork.  
For the rest of the tour, he is note perfect.

He doesn’t come out to the fans, because he figures his private life is his own and it’s only the business of the people in it. If he dates a guy and it comes out somehow he wouldn’t be devastated, but he sees no reason to put it out there himself.

So, he gets back from the tour feeling shiny. He sleeps and plays guitar. The five of them work on an EP, arrange songs, and shoot music videos. He hangs out with his friends and lives with his _best_ friend and goes out to the mountains with his family. He goes to clubs and kisses girls and a few times kisses boys, feels electric and free and _right_. Avi is mostly fine, good, _great_ in fact.

Except, of course, for the fact that he is in love.

 

Mitch and Travis are kissing.

Avi is standing, at the party, with a group listening to Scott tell a story, and is not listening to the story at all. He’s watching them. Not obviously, but he is. He’s watching their noses brush and their hands in each other’s hair and Mitch giggling, and it hurts. He doesn’t understand how it feels like a physical pain in his heart. He gets it now, all the songs and movies, the term ‘heart ache’. He feels that his heart is actually aching.

He goes to the kitchen, and because he is _decidedly_ not drunk enough for this, and pours himself a drink.

“So,” Scott says from behind him, and Avi jumps. He had thought he’d been alone.

“Jeez, scared me to death,” Avi laughs, holding the bottle up in silent question. Scott nods, and Avi pours him a drink. “So?” Avi prompts as he’s pouring.

“So, I think I worked something out,” Scott tells him, while his back’s turned, throws it out into the room like it’s something grenade shaped and he isn’t sure if it’s a toy or not.

“You talking about the Daft Punk arrangement?” Avi asks, turning and passing Scott his drink. The look on his face tells him before Scott does that it is not about the arrangement.

Scott looks at the floor and then his cup and bites his lip before saying, “It’s about my best friend.”

“What about him?” Avi frowns, perching on the table opposite Scott, who is leaning against the fridge.

Scott looks kind of constipated, like he’s trying to work out how to say what he came in here to say; maybe pull the pin on the grenade.

“He’s in love. With Travis.”

Avi ignores how that feels like being sucker punched, because he knows that. He’s not had it stated so plainly to him before but he knows that, and doesn’t get why Scott’s talking to him about it.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Avi smiles. Scott smiles back at him so sadly Avi’s taken aback.

“Yeah, it is,” he agrees, voice soft, “because it means that he’s happy, you know? Like, confident, not anxious, sure of himself happy,” Scott continues really slowly, like he’s pushing each word to the edge of a cliff without letting them fall, “And I just, he deserves to be happy. You know?”

There’s some heavy, heavy subtext going on here. Avi reads between the lines slow and careful, and is sure they’re both on the same awkward page.

Of course Scott knows, he watches them all like a hawk, knows Avi like the back of his hand and Mitch like his own name. It still startles him, though, even though it shouldn’t.

He thinks a while on his reply, and Scott just looks at him, patient, awaiting a response.

“And Travis… is the only thing that could make him happy?” Avi asks the ceiling. The conversation feels weird and distant, like he’s watching it on a T.V screen.

“I’m not saying that,” Scott insists, “I’m. What’s frustrating is that I’m sure… other things _could_ make him happy. But he just… he’s not happy with something- with _someone_ else. He’s happy with Travis. And because I care about him, I think it’s great that he’s with Travis. Right?” Scott’s practically whispering now, moving closer to Avi like he’s a wounded animal he’s trying not to scare.

“Right,” Avi agrees, the word coming out sharp, hurting his throat.

Scott sits next to him on the table top, now. Avi looks at the notes on the fridge and Scott watches Avi’s face.

“I wasn’t going to… I know he’s off limits. I wasn’t going to try anything,” Avi feels the need to convince Scott.  
Scott sighs.

“I know you wouldn’t. You’re a really good person, Avi,” He says sincerely, and it doesn’t sound like drunken affection. Scott says it like it’s something important he ought to know.

“I’m not, really.” Avi confesses, and Scott shakes his head but Avi continues, “I wish they’d never met. Can you believe that? How much joy and happiness have they given each other and just because I’m bitter and selfish and jealous I wish they’d never met. I’d take that away from them. I resent Travis, and he hasn’t done anything wrong.”  
“But you wouldn’t ever do anything about it. You’re nothing but nice and polite to him,” Scott insists.

Avi leans a little on Scott’s side.

“It’s not fair, then,” He says, knowing he probably sounds like a brat. “If I’m good and nice and polite, then why don’t I get to be happy?”

“That’s just life,” Scott replies sadly. And then, after a moment, “but you deserve it, happiness.”

The clock ticks a few more seconds.

“You too.”

When they head back into the living room with the rest of the party Mitch and Travis are kissing, and Avi can feel himself falling apart.

 

They tour again. It’s bigger this time, more venues, more fans, press people actually wanting to talk to them. There’s so many people to meet and things to do and Avi being the introvert he is gets tired.

He hides away behind the back of the venue one night, just looking up at the sky. It’s a few minutes before Mitch joins him. He expects Mitch to ask him what he’s doing, or tell him they need to be somewhere to talk to someone, but instead he just sits right down next to him.

Avi wonders if this is their thing, looking up at the stars. Neither of them say anything, and they stay like that for a long time, until Mitch gets a text saying they’re needed for sound check. As Avi goes to open the door they’d left out of, he feels Mitch’s hand on his arm stopping him.

“That was nice,” Mitch smiles, and only seeing him relaxed like this makes Avi realise how tired he’d looked. He forgets sometimes what an introvert Mitch is because when around people he’s comfortable with he’s so outgoing and magnetising.

“You’re nice,” Avi allows himself to say, and then turns inside before Mitch can respond.

 

Things sort of bumble on like this for a while, crowds, dressing rooms, the back of the bus, hotels, sitting outside venues in shared silence with someone he’s sure he’s falling more and more in love with every second. He opens up to Kevin, one night, who doesn’t seem surprised at all, just tackles him in a hug when he starts tearing up a little. Things bumble on, and Avi stumbles through each day, growing used to the way his chest hurts sometimes when he looks at Mitch.

On the final show of the tour Mitch hits the highest note he ever has. It’s during Aha, and everyone notices when his voice climbs up over it’s usual level. They all struggle not to stop singing as the crowd erupts with applause and screaming. Scott and Kirstin grin and each other like proud parents and Kevin looks at Mitch in awe. He so beautiful in that moment, the relief washing over him as the concentration of trying to hit the note leaves his face, his hair falling into his eyes, the split second that a smile slips over his lips. He is glowing, he is ethereal, he is every star in the sky.

 

Then, that evening, Mitch walks onto the bus where they’re all trying to jam out something for the next ep looking like a drawing of himself someone tried to rub out but hadn’t quite got the job done.

“Me and Travis broke up,” He announces, before anyone says a word, “I _don’t_ want to talk about it, please don’t mention it. Ok?” He asks, voice pinched. They all nod wordlessly, and Avi notices that Scott doesn’t look surprised. He guesses Mitch went to speak to him about it first.

Avi doesn’t even feel hopeful at this news. Mitch is all strung out and red eyed, curving in on himself so he’s small like Avi hasn’t seen him in a while.

The bus rolls back to LA, and they tip toe around Mitch like he’s a sleeping baby. He just accepts it, drifts around like somethings missing. Avi had thought nothing could hurt him more than seeing Mich happy with Travis, but now here he is unhappy without him.

 

They’ve been back about a couple of weeks when Mitch shows up on his front door with a bottle of vodka under one arm and a cards against humanity box under the other.

“Scott’s been seeing this boy,” Mitch frowns, after two drinks and three games.

“You don’t like him?” Avi asks, stacking up the cards again.

“He’s really cute and really nice and really funny and very into Scott,” Mitch replies, saying it like he’s listing off negatives.

“Um, he sounds terrible?” Avi tries, and it gets a laugh out of Mitch. Avi’s glad he said it, is counting how many times he can make Mitch laugh. He had been playing all the most offensive cards and making an idiot out of himself all night so Mitch would giggle and groan and threaten to kill him, trying to hold back a smile

“Shut up,” He wines, elbowing him. Avi laughs.

“What is it? Are you jealous?” Avi asks more seriously.

They’re quiet together for a moment while Mitch considers this before he speaks again.

“I just… _Travis_ was really cute and nice and funny and into _me_.,” He starts, and looks down into his vodka, “And now that he’s- now that we’ve broken up I’m, like, heartbroken, you know? I’m all mopey and angry and no fun to be around, and I don’t want this Alex guy to do the same thing to Scott,” Mitch admits, swirling the last sip of his drink around in his cup. “That stupid?” He asks, looking up at Avi with a sad expression on his face. Avi shakes his head immediately.

“Not stupid at all,” Avi insists.

Mitch has done it again, made himself vulnerable in front of Avi so he feels like he’s holding the stars in his hands, and they’re all made of glass. This is the first time Mitch has really talked to Avi about Travis since before the break up, long before the break up now that Avi thinks about it.

“That’s how I feel every time a guy even looks at Esther,“ He tries to assure him.

“Yeah?” Mitch asks, looking relieved, and Avi knows he’s said the right thing.

“Totally. I mean, I want to punch them anyway because, like, she’s my sister. Don’t look at her. But it’s worse with really nice guys, ‘cause I’m so scared she’s going to show up at my door crying ‘cause she loved them and it didn’t work out,” He frowns, and it’s true.

“So, I should punch Alex?” Mitch asks, mock seriously, and Avi shoves his shoulder.

“No, but especially after having your heart broken, it’s totally normal to be wary for your friends,” Avi says, and Mitch smiles at him a little before he leans his head on Avi’s shoulder. They’re both tired at this point, and Avi had thought Mitch had fallen asleep, is shocked when he speaks.

“I wish…” Mitch whispers, but he trails off.

“You wish what?” Avi asks.

“I wish we had broken down. That night, with the farm town,” He says, and it would make Avi laugh if he didn’t sound so honest.

“We can still do it, open a farm up in the middle of nowhere. We could go to the mountains!” Avi says, and he feels Mitch’s sleepy smile against his shoulder.

“I wish we’d fallen in love, instead” Mitch says a moment later, and Avi feels the words slice through him like knives.

His ears ring.

He feels like someone’s poured ice over his head and then shoved him outside in the middle of winter. He feels the words lodge themselves in all the places he’s soft and unprotected and he feels them carve themselves into his body.

Mitch had said it like it was a joke. A tired and amusing throwaway thought he could just say. Avi wants to cry so badly it feels like there’s salt in his eyes.  
Mitch might as well have stood up and just kicked hard him in the face. He feels himself go rigid, and Mitch sits up, frowning.

“What-“He starts, but Avi cuts him off.

“You should probably go,” He says, not looking at him. He can’t look at him. His voice is empety.

“Avi, I-“Mitch sounds entirely confused, slightly hurt. But when you’ve been shot in the heart, you don’t worry about how the sight of your blood might make the shooter faint, and Avi cuts him off again.

“ _Go_ ,” He says, firm and angry, a tone unlike anything he’s ever used to speak to Mitch before.

Mitch scrambles to grab his things and then leaves, probably out of anger at Avi.

When he’s sure Mitch has gone, Avi says into his cold empty apartment, between stupid little sobs, “me fucking too.”

 

Avi regrets it the next morning. He regrets it before he even opens his eyes, and he regrets it when he rolls over, and he regrets it while he brushes his teeth and while he showers and while he pours his cereal.

He regrets it when he thumbs over Mitch’s contact name and he regrets it when he can’t actually bring himself to call him.

He regrets it when, early that weekend, they all meet to put the final touches on their most recent cover, and Mitch doesn’t look at him.

And because they are this tight knit group, and because of every moment leading up to this one, like a carefully woven tapestry, everyone else notices too.

It’s awkward, and the song sounds awkward, and Avi hates it. It’s when he snaps at Kirstie that the session comes to an end.

“Oh, you are not taking out whatever the fucks going on between _you two_ on me!” She says, sounding calm in the most unnerving way.

“Yeah, what is going on?” Scott asks him, sounding accusatory. And that just… it’s too much.

“Why is it always my fault? Why do you immediately blame me?” Avi asks. His intention had been to sound snide but it comes out sounding pitiful, his voice whiny and trodden on.

“How the hell is this anyone else’s fault?” Mitch asks, speaking directly to Avi for the first time, and sounding completely floored by what Avi had said, like he couldn’t even believe it. He just… he has no idea. Avi has been pining and lamenting and powering through and Mitch gets to just not even be aware of it. He knows he acted like a dick, he knows it wasn’t Mitch’s fault and Mitch doesn’t owe him anything, but surely he can at least deserve compassion? Some kind of consideration?

“You… are just… _oblivious_ ,” Avi almost laughs on the last word. “You just… not even an inkling of an idea as to why what you said upset me so much?” Avi asks, and Mitch just continues to look confused and angry.

“COMMUNICATE!” Kirstie shouts suddenly, and everyone turns to her, startled. “AM I GOING OUT OF MY MIND HERE? COMMUNICATE! WITH YOUR _WORDS_. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST CUT ALL THIS CRYPTIC BULLSHIT AND GODDAMN _TELL EACH OTHER HOW YOU ARE FEELING_!”

There is a stunned silence in the room before she sighs, runs her hands over her face, and looks a little bit out of her mind.

“Um…” Kevin begins, but she just glares at him.

“I thought trying to express feelings was difficult with just one boy in a relationship. This is ridiculous,” Kirstie says to no one in particular, sounding hysterical.

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” Mitch complains.

“Clearly you have unintentionally hurt Avis feelings so if you two could just sit down and have an adult conversation-“

“Maybe you should just both apologise to each other!” Kevin says quickly seeing the anger in Mitch’s features begin to build but immediately regretting it once Kirstie glares at him for interrupting.

“Kevin! I was in the middle of a sentence!”

“I mean we still need to get this arrangement finished,” Scott adds in.

“Will you just shut up about that for a second?”

“I don’t even know what’s going on!”

“Will everyone stop interrupting me!”

And then lots of angry words are happening at once and Avi can feel it all bubbling over and he can feel himself bubbling over so says very quietly that he’s leaving and then does so.

He plans on ignoring them all for a long time to, like, teach them all a lesson or something, but he realises this plan is flawed when Kevin comes back to their shared apartment later that evening. Avi is draped over the sofa like a soggy piece of fabric, frowning at the game show on TV. The sweet quiet girl is losing to the douche bag who keeps making sexist jokes and it’s making him so mad. Kevin sighs, and sits at the other end of the couch.

“How you doing, man?” He asks sympathetically, squeezing Avi’s ankle and then letting his hand rest there. It’s ridiculously comforting in the unassuming way Kevin always is.

“Everything is terrible. I’m in love with him, and the idea of that is a joke to him. And he’s sad now. I made him sad! And then that ruined practice, as well,” He grumps self-indulgently. Kevin makes a sympathetic noise.

“I guess I’m just going to love him forever, and he’s going to get hurt by more assholes that don’t realise how awesome he is, and then meet someone really nice eventually and get married and adopt cute babies and I’ll just, like, sing bass in his wedding hymns and try to make him laugh when he’s all heart broken and let him shit all over my feelings for forever,” Avi decides, and Kevin, unexpectedly, glares at him.

“Over my dead body,” He says, way too seriously. Which is the worst thing to imagine _ever_.

“You are never going to die shut up!” Avi whines, and Kevin cracks into a little smile.

“Nah, you’re right, I am immortal,” He admits, “but once I work out the key to living forever you know I’m sharing it with you, and if I have to spend the rest of eternity watching you hurt, and watching it get worse because you, what, don’t think you deserve happiness? Well, that would really suck,” He says more seriously. There’s a shocked beat where Avi doesn’t know what to say next, white noise of the tv filling the gap.

“He doesn’t want me,” he half whispers, eventually, pretending to watch the game show. The girl is still losing.

“Did he say that?” Kevin asks.

“Well, he implied-“ Avi starts, and Kevin leans forward, grabs the remote, and turns off the TV before turning back to face him.

“Did he _actually_ say that though? Or are you so scared that you might suddenly have the chance to get something you’ve wanted for a really long time and so you’re putting words in his mouth?” Kevin asks. Avi wishes the TV was still on to fill the quiet that follows. Kevin sighs when he sees how uncomfortable Avi looks. He sits back, and leans his arm against the back of the seat. Avi knows, wordlessly, that Kevin is about to kindly tell him some revelation which will change his outlook on the entire world. Avi sits up and next to his best friend.

“You ever do religious studies in school?” Kevin asks. Avi thinks about it.

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” He nods after a moment, remembering bulky textbooks and memorising bible quotes.

“You ever pay much real attention besides what you had to for a good grade?” Kevin asks.

“Uh, not really,” Avi admits.

“Right. Well, I was super into it. Not just because I’m a religious person myself, but because I think understanding other people is so important for peace. And people’s belief systems are often such a defining characteristic of their actions. How people talk, treat other people, how a lot of wars start, what different people take offense to, stuff like that.”  
Avi nods to show he’s still with him, but doesn’t really understand where Kevin’s going with this.

“Anyway, what I wanted to say to you was about this thing we learned when we were studying Buddhism. So, one of the core beliefs of Buddhists is this idea they all share that, basically, of all life is just suffering. Now, that might be a little gloomy, but what they do is they spend their whole lives trying to reach enlightenment, at least the monks and nuns do. And the way they do this, ok this is the relevant part, is they try not to crave anything. Buddhists believe that craving is the root of all suffering. They reckon people are only ever sad because they want something. And then when they get it, they want something else. You get the new IPhone, so you’re happy for five seconds until the next one comes out, and then you want that. It’s a vicious cycle. They think that the only way to ever really be happy is not to want anything anymore.”

“Are you saying I’ll only ever be happy if I don’t want Mitch?” Avi asks, uncertainly.

“Not exactly, because here’s the thing. I’m not a Buddhist monk. When I get the new iPhone, I enjoy it, I’m not immediately thinking about the next thing. But, there is some truth to what they’re saying. When you see that the new iPhone is out, you gotta either buy it or decide you don’t want it.”

“Is Mitch the iPhone?”Avi asks.

“No one is an iPhone. People are different, obviously, I’m not saying Mitch is some kinda prize. What I’m trying to say is that you have loved Mitch for a really long time in a very real way. You have craved this thing with him for so long, cared about him for so long, that right now, craving is the root of your suffering. Wanting this is making you suffer so, so bad. You know it has to stop, this suffering, right?”

Avi nods.

“So you gotta do it. One way or the other. You have to break the cycle by ripping it off like a band aid or reaching the end. You have to buy the iPhone or you have to leave the store. You have to either stop craving, somehow, or just _go for it_.” Kevin shrugs, like he doesn’t know how brilliant he is.

“You should write a book,” Avi tells him.

“You should make a decision,” Kevin replies.

“I think-” Avi starts to ssay, and then stops. He doesn’t know what he thinks. He doesn’t know what to do.

 

After Kevin gets up to go to bed, Avi turns the TV back on in time to see, to his surprise, that the girl has won the game show.

 

Avi wakes the next morning with a sudden and absolute sureness of what he must do. He sits up, rubs his eyes, and puts on his best pair of socks. This is the day.  
This is the day he’ll do it. He’s going to tell Mitch. He’s going to put it out there because if he doesn’t he’s just going to suffer forever. There’s no way he’s ever not going to want Mitch, it’s been long enough for him to know that.

He brushes his teeth with determination, washes his face with enthusiasm, and then goes to make himself a big breakfast.

He drinks lots of coffee and puts more effort into his appearance than usual and rambles to himself about Buddhist beliefs and stands in front of his mirror. His hair looks great. His beard is awesome. It’s a nice day, today is the day.

“I’m in love with you,” He practises saying, or tries to say, before he realises that he can’t actually do it all.

He can’t tell Mitch he loves him. He can’t face this rejection. He can’t have his heart ripped out of his chest. He’s already given so much of himself to Mitch, he can’t do this. He can’t.

And then, the doorbell rings. Avi waits for Kevin to get it, before he realises he hasn’t seen Kevin at all this morning. He’s probably still asleep, or has gone to do something really awesome. There’s not really any in between with Kevin.

So Avi sighs, tries to compose himself a little, and goes to answer the door.

He was not expecting a sweaty, fierce looking Mitch to be stood there.

He opens his mouth, not really sure what he’s going to say, but it doesn't matter anyway because Mitch says.

“No!” His voice sounding incredibly odd. Avi closes his mouth.

“I’m going to talk, ok , and when I’m done, you can talk. Is that ok?” Mitch asks, and Avi nods.

“D’you wanna come inside though?” He asks.

“Um, yeah, I guess. But, just, you gotta listen to me first,” Mitch says walking in to the Avi’s sitting room. Avi closes the door and then leans against it, and Mitch hovers awkwardly, wringing his hands, in the centre of the room. Avi is about to suggest Mitch sits down, when he suddenly starts talking.

“I need to, um, apologise? Kind of. But mostly, actually, I’m mad at you,” Mitch says, which is a confusing place to begin.  
“Because I’ve been thinking a lot about everything and, like, when you got so mad at me. Because I do remember what I said right before you kicked me out. And the thing is, at first I was just so mad, because I thought… I don’t even know what I thought, but I didn’t get why you would do that at all. I just thought you were being a dick for no reason, and then Scott was like ‘there must have been a reason, though’ and being all logical and I was like ‘but why would he be pissed at me just for making a joke?’. And then, uh, as I was saying it, I realised. That maybe, shit, please stop me if I’m wrong, that maybe the reason you were angry is because this, um, _us_ … isn’t a joke, to you?” Mitch says fast, and then bites his lip anxiously as soon as he’s done, eyebrows raised in question.

Avi’s mouth feels dry, and he knows if he opens his mouth something weird or pathetic will come out, so after a moment of just staring at Mitch’s beautiful face, he nods. He knows that it will change everything, but he nods.

“Right,” Mitch breathes, looking almost relieved. “Right, because the thing is I didn’t. I didn’t ever even think that was possible. And I didn’t mean to hurt you at all. I just… It’s been a joke for so long that I-“

“I never found it funny,” Avi pipes up, suddenly, because he can’t help it, “It.. It’s never seemed like a good joke, to me,” He says.

“Shit, Avi, I’m sorry,” Mitch sounds so dreadfully sympathetic, and Avi thinks he might be sick.

“Don’t be, okay?” He says not angrily, ” Just, it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. And this doesn’t have to change anything. We can just pretend it never happened. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or-“

“No, Avi-“

“Mitch it’s okay-“

“NO, Avi, would you just listen to me-“

“You don’t have to-“

And then Mitch surges forward, grasps his shoulders, and kisses him. Well, kisses his teeth, as Avi had been in the middle of talking. Avi freezes up, and Mitch leans back, wiping as his mouth.

“Wow, that was a lot more romantic in my head,” Mitch says.

“Um,” Avi says, before coming to his senses, and pushes Mitch away. “You don’t have to do that just to make me feel better,” He says, turning away because he can’t look at him right now.

“Jesus, Avi, I’ve had a crush on you from the moment I met you, okay? Trust me, I’m not just trying to be a good friend right now,” Mitch says exasperatedly, and Avi whirls round.

“What? But- that doesn’t… what? I… you… Travis! This isn’t… no you haven’t,” Avi stutters, feeling the entire world stop spinning.

“Yes I have!” Mitch lies, because there is no way this is true.

“You didn’t you…you never-”

“Because you were straight! And head over heels for Kirstie!” Mitch crys, “So I knew it was never going to happen, and tried to just repress it. I dated Travis to get over you, you idiot. But it didn’t fucking work,” He pauses then, like he’s considering his next words, and says them a little quitter, like he’s tired and can’t help saying them, “It didn’t fucking work, and I still _love you!_ ”

And then Avi grabs his face, and kisses him properly. He wraps his arms around Mitch’s frame, Mitch’s frame which he has known to be small and large and tiny, draped with cheap t shirts and tacky costumes and designer clothes he doesn’t really get, his favourite sweater, careless hoodies, Avi’s coat. He holds Mitch’s face which is soft and angular, moves his fingers over his cheeks that which have been tear stained from laughter and sorrow and stretched as he smiled. He runs his hands down his arms, around his waist, through his hair. He kisses him with every feeling he has kept bottled inside him for so, so long. He kisses him, and pulls away, and laughs, and kisses him again.

It is the first time he made Mitch laugh, back when it was timid in front of him, both of them unsure of this feeling bubbling between them. It is chasing him around the dressing room because he won’t stop teasing, and hugging him tight after songs. It is Mitch’s high notes rolling over him like gentle waves, like them standing on the beach in LA with their toes in the ocean. It’s eating ice cream and long journeys on the bus. It’s staying up so late on a shoot they’re hysterical, laughing over nothing. It’s knowing each other inside out, the feeling of the plane taking off and landing. It’s right before they go on stage, on the sing off and on their first tour or Ellen or the biggest show they've ever played. It’s everything, and it’s ridiculous, and it is ever star in the sky and mountain on this earth.

“I love you, Oh my god I _love you_ ” Avi laughs between kisses, spinning Mitch around his apartment.

Two magnets crash together, and it is the very peak of human nature. It is the universes greatest accomplishment.

**Author's Note:**

> WOW so this is possibly the longest fic i have ever written? bc i'm mavi trash? anyway i put a lot of love into this and i hope people like it!! if you could leave a comment telling me what you thought i would b so grateful<3
> 
> ps u can come say hey on tumblr @ ghostgirlmitch.tumblr.com !!!x


End file.
